SCP-304 — SCP-304 | Cost Breakdown

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SCP-304 Safe ~ medium confidence

SCP-304

Expected annual

$25.3M

One-time setup

$1.8B

Annual recurring

$21.6M

Personnel

Estimated initial capital and contingency reserves of approximately $1.80 billion, driven primarily by spacecraft fabrication, launch services, ground-station upgrades, power systems and large contingency/reserve funds; recurring annual costs are ~ $22.65M driven by staffing, ground-station operations, security, counterintelligence and maintenance.

🏗️ One-Time Capital Costs Total: $1.8B

Spacecraft Fabrication $500.0M

[#3] Fabrication of replacement/hardened probes (2 spares, mid-range)

Retrieval Repair Contingency $400.0M

[#26] Full-cost contingency for deep-space retrieval/repair mission (mid-range)

Launch Services $260.0M

[#4] Launch services for replacement probes (assumed 2 launches at mid-range)

Emergency Rapid Launch Reserve $200.0M

[#18] Reserve for rapid-response buyout / expedited launch capability

Antennas And Ground Station Upgrades $120.0M

[#2] Multiple 34m+ class station builds/upgrades (assumed 3-station mid-range total)

Power Systems $120.0M

[#6] Deep-space power modules / RTG procurement for spares (mid-range)

Redundant Spare Probe $100.0M

[#17] Additional redundant contingency spare (one spare, preservation & mothballing cost)

Covert Procurement Reserve $50.0M

[#14] Black-budget reserve for covert procurement and untraceable channels

Facilities $16.0M

[#1] Hardened mission operations & command center buildout estimate (mid-range)

Liaison And Covert Agreements $10.0M

[#12] Upfront payments, MOUs or covert procurement/agreements (one-time/periodic payment assumed)

Propellant And Maneuvers $5.0M

[#5] Mission propellant and lifetime delta-v budget (one-time loading/capex)

Public Relations Campaign Reserve $5.0M

[#11] Major PR campaign / crisis communications contingency (one-time reserve)

Insurance Escrow $5.0M

[#22] Insurance / escrow funds for contractor compensation or damage control

Declassification Planning $5.0M

[#23] One-time contingency fund for managed reveal / crisis planning

Encryption Development $2.0M

[#7] Secure encryption/masking protocol development (one-time development)

Data Storage Initial $1.0M

[#10] Initial secure storage and archival hardware (cold storage setup)

Equipment $0

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Initial Research And Lab Setup $0

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Program Baseline Summary Reference $0

[#28] Baseline program estimate (summary of other line items; no additional one-time charge included here)

🔄 Annual Recurring Costs Total: $21.6M/yr

Ground Station Operations $4.0M/yr

[#2] Operations, maintenance and staffing for geographically-separated ground stations (assumed 3 stations)

Staff Wages $3.8M/yr

[#8, #9] Salaries for signals monitoring/astrophysicists/engineers and cryptography/cyberdefense teams (aggregate)

Pensions And Retention $2.5M/yr

[#19] Long-duration staff pension/retention costs (retainers, bonuses)

Facilities Maintenance $2.0M/yr

[#1] Ongoing operations and maintenance for mission operations / command center

Counterintelligence $2.0M/yr

[#16] Information sanitization, monitoring, takedowns and limited disinformation operations

Research And Monitoring $1.5M/yr

[#20] Scientific research into SCP content & threat assessment (grants, experiments)

Security $1.5M/yr

[#15] Physical security personnel, vetting, secure transport and safe houses

Redundant Spare Maintenance $1.0M/yr

[#17] Storage, test cycles and preservation maintenance for mothballed spares

Utilities $600K/yr

[#21] Power, cooling and facility utilities for operations center and primary ground sites

Supplies And Consumables $500K/yr

[#27] Misc consumables, test equipment & spares (annual)

Cover Story And Legal $500K/yr

[#13] Legal & regulatory cover-up costs (annual legal fees, filings, FOIA handling)

In Flight Propulsion Operations $500K/yr

[#5] Ongoing telemetry/corrections and propulsion operations while probes are active

Personnel Rotation $500K/yr

[#24] Rotation costs, travel, training and re-certifications to avoid burnout

Encryption Maintenance $300K/yr

[#7] Ongoing maintenance & key management for masking protocols

Containment Audit $300K/yr

[#25] Regular audits, red-team assessments and compliance overhead

Data Storage Maintenance $200K/yr

[#10] Storage, processing & archival maintenance (cold storage refreshes, off-site copies)

Logistics And Transport $0/yr

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⚡ Cost Scenarios

📊 Baseline (baseline) $21.6M/yr

94.5% probability / year

Normal uneventful year with ongoing operations, monitoring, maintenance and routine administration.

no major incidents routine operations only

🚨 Minor Incident $29.1M/yr

5.0% probability / year +$7.5M vs baseline

Small-scale leak, media attention or cybersecurity incident requiring crisis PR, legal response and short-term security surge.

media leak/suspicious observation targeted intrusion or minor breach

🚨 Major Retrieval Mission $682.6M/yr

0.5% probability / year +$661.0M vs baseline

Partial probe failure requiring a dedicated retrieval/repair mission and at least one expedited launch.

probe critical failure hardware degradation requiring retrieval/repair

👥 Personnel 18 total

Role	Count	Notes
Research Scientist	6	[#8] Astrophysicists and senior researchers (part of signals monitoring/research staff)
Radio Engineer / Signal Analyst	4	[#8] RF engineers and telemetry analysts
Computational Linguist	2	[#8] Linguistics and format/decoding specialists
Cryptanalyst / Applied Mathematician	2	[#8] Cryptanalysis specialists assisting signal decoding
Cryptographer / Cybersecurity Specialist	4	[#9] Cryptographers and cyberdefense staff (protect masking code and mission networks)

📋 Confidence Notes

Analyst notes provide explicit ranges for most categories enabling mid-range estimates, but large ranges on spacecraft, launch, contingency and covert procurement introduce substantial uncertainty; scenario probabilities are inferred.

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